Killer Queen
by LilLolaBlue
Summary: Sex. Violence. Quidditch. Ginny's looking after hard-living Harry, and seeing to her fanboys, but Remus wants to save her when Lucius makes her an offer she can't refuse. What's a girl to do? GW/HP, GW/RL, GW/LM. HP & Naked Lunch For 2 AU. 6th yr. Lemons.
1. Heart of Darkness

KILLER QUEEN (Part One)

_(Author's Note: This story takes place in a rather charmingly depraved alternate universe I have created over in a story called Harry Potter and the Naked Lunch For Two. If you are interested, you can catch up there, after you've started here.)_

Ginny's ordeal in her first year culminating in Harry saving her life in the chamber of Secrets could have had one of two effects on her. It could have turned her into a frightened little rabbit, or make her determined that no one would ever get the best of her again. In Ginny's case, it was the latter rather than the former.

While she was still in the infirmary after Harry got her out of the Chamber, she promised herself she'd never be that stupid again, or that weak. The next time Voldemort or his kind came for her, or Harry, or any of her friends and family, she was going to be damn good and ready.

Ginny was, next to Harry Potter, King of the Bad-Ass Motherfuckers, the toughest student at Hogwarts. And that was a very close second. She had quite a reputation as someone whose bad side you never wanted to be on. Her father was fond of saying "Our Ginny isn't just pretty as a diamond, she's as hard as one, as well."

For one thing, nobody made fun of Ron within earshot of Ginny. She was second best at duelling only to Harry in Dumbledore's Army, and she knew hexes that some DADA professors had never heard of. Ginny loved a good fight, whether it was with wands or fists. Either way, if you were her opponent, you were likely to get creamed. If she was in a good mood, she'd beat the shit out of you, and if she was in a bad mood…well it took once Madame Pomfrey three days to sort out all the things she did to Crabbe before he could even get his wand out from under his sleeve.

Ginny hadn't really made any definite plans for the future; she just wanted to get there, alive and one piece, with her family and friends in the same condition. She preferred to be safe rather than sorry, so her pugilistic performances, her academic excellence that led her to be able to skip a year in Defence Against the Dark Arts, Potions, and Occlumency and her skill with a wand weren't enough to satisfy Ginny that she was ready to win the war they were all enmeshed in. She was also a trained animagus who was once suspended from school for a week regarding an incident where a huge lioness with a reddish tinge to her tawny coat chased Draco Malfoy to the tallest tower of Hogwarts castle.

Ginny was like a lion. She was fierce, and strong, and hot-tempered, but she had a good and valiant heart.

In part, however, it was a heart of darkness.

They had a nickname for her on the Quidditch pitch, they called her the Killer Queen. It was partially because she played the game with a ferocity that was just this side of illegal, and partially because of the nasty rumour that she combined her two favourite pleasures, sex and violence, working as a spook for CAULDRON. _(Central Advanced Unit for Limiting Dark Rites and Orders Nationwide)_

Her job, the rumour went, was to kill Death Eaters, but, if they were good looking she was always said to seduce them first, and murder them after. According to the more salacious rumours, during, turning into a lioness and tearing them to pieces at the moment they came.

The truth was less spectacular and yet somehow more depraved.

Ginny truly had a brute heart, and was born to her brutality in those moments in the Chamber of Secrets. She didn't think violence was the solution to every problem. But she never hesitated to use the boot and the fist and the claw when she felt the situation warranted it. Truth to be told, in some situations where magic could have done just as well she resorted to a good, old fashioned belt in the chops. Violence seemed somehow cleaner, neater and more efficient than magic, sometimes. When she did use magic she didn't throw a hex, she hurled a succession of them, and when she cast a spell or a curse she did it with great force, they sounded like curses exploding from her mouth and from the tip of her wand, in sparks and light.

She often thought that she would have turned into a real psycho, had she not discovered sex in her third year. She found flesh much more entertaining than blood, though, she despised the idea of being in any "relationshits", and never really had a steady bloke.

Or wanted one. Her status as Quidditch Hero and general badass brought a stream of male admirers, groupies really, into her life. She drank liberally from that stream, glutting her appetites with sex in a way she never could have done with violence without becoming the sort of person she hated the most.

Though her sexual fantasies were largely indiscriminate, her violent fantasies were very much focused on certain people. And of all the wizards in all the world she wanted to do violence to, the greatest object of her plans for bloody vengeance was the man who had placed her feet firmly on the path of blood and iron.

Lucius Steerforth Salazar Malfoy.

Ginny made it her business to know everything there was to know about Lord Malfoy. And not just the information readily available to readers of the Daily Prophet. By fifth year, when she was Harry Potter's right hand woman in Dumbledore's Army, she had spend three years painstakingly gathering information, sometimes in places and from sources that would have appalled her parents. She didn't frequent the dives in Knockturn Alley with Harry just to watch his back when he got legless and hold onto his wallet and wand while he screwed anonymous Potter groupies in the filthy loos. Nor did she go solely for the pleasure and practise of lending a hand when he got to throwing punches around.

She talked to people and found out things. Which led her to more people, who knew more things.

Nasty things.

Dirty things.

Terrible things.

And Ginny knew them all. She had parchments and photographs and secrets and lies. She knew that Tom Riddle had seduced Lucius Malfoy into the Death Eater fold with lofty talk about purity of blood, but that the wicked Dark Lord had other purposes in mind for the handsome boy.

He was sold, over and over again, like a piece of meat to the kind of wealthy, filthy and depraved Sadean monsters that a depraved Sadean monster like Voldemort counted amongst his friends and business associates. Rape, torture and humiliation were the prices he paid, in his own blood, to serve Lord Voldemort. Not to mention sizeable amounts of his family's fortune. And when the proud young lord was not being pimped off and framed out to the Dark Lord's loathsome cronies, he was subjected to the monstrous affections and inclinations of Voldemort, himself.

Lucius Malfoy, Tom Riddle's rent boy and cash cow.

Diabolical.

Ginny's informants spoke in hushed tones about the depravities that Voldemort visited upon Malfoy in his youth; they were never too specific, and some referred her to the grotesqueries of the Dark Wizard De Sade for a template of the brutal indecencies visited on Malfoy in his youth. She had, in her possession, pictures that she wished she had never seen of horrors she wished never existed to prove these were not just the squalid lies of feverish drunks, junkies and Doom freaks. In a way, Ginny had learned too much about her enemy. She had discovered his weaknesses, but she had also discovered pity for the man. When Malfoy became a full fledged Death Eater at his majority, 21, and was too old to continue his dark servitude to his dark lord, he was a twisted and broken man, an alcoholic, hopelessly addicted to heroin, the dreaded Purple Doom, and the mixture of both, the Dragon's Fire.

As a grown man and the Lord of Malfoy Manor, he was reported to have tamed his wild addictions to heroin, Purple Doom, and cheap rotgut firewhiskey, but not his addiction to sex. His tastes ran only to women, and bore no stamp of the sadism or perversion with which he had been tortured as a youth. He was, however, reportedly sexually compulsive and insatiable, a wild and demanding lover, the sort of man who threw himself headlong into an endless sea of faceless partnersto glut some wild hunger inside him that wasn't completely sexual.

Perhaps, like her, his hunger was for vengeance.

Ginny enjoyed the irony that she and her prey were so alike in temperament.

It would make it all the easier for her to snare him.

Draco Malfoy sold weed, hash, heroin, cocaine, Purple Doom, speed, acid and Dragon's Fire to his fellow students at Hogwarts. His supply came from his father, whose supplier was Lord Voldemort, himself. Tom Riddle may have made his reputation on his theories of racial superiority, but he had made his money the old- fashioned way, through drugs, prostitution, and tribute from his pureblood, aristocratic followers.

Harry, whose bad habits were piling up by the day, was a regular customer of Draco's; he favoured pot and coke but wasn't above doing a little smack now and again. Ginny offered to be his bagman, but refused to deal with Draco.

She wanted to meet Malfoy, and she wanted to do it at the Horntail's Lair, a notorious dive in Knockturn Alley.

Draco was surprised that his father agreed, but Ginny wasn't.

* * *

Her plan, of course, was to seduce Malfoy, and once they were alone, to kill him. She hadn't really decided how, yet, preferring to dispose of him in whatever way her fancy took her at the time.

She didn't have to feign attraction to him.

Rumour had it that the Malfoys were part Elvish and Ginny could believe it; her enemy had some of the otherworldly beauty of an Elf, particularly in his long, fine white-blond hair and his pale blue eyes. He was quite a tall man, and he appeared lithe and strong. He had very large hands that seemed strangely powerful for an aristocrat, and beneath his chilly demeanour the lioness in Ginny could sense the raging heat and turmoil of his boiling rich red blood.

He was very well-dressed, immaculately so. His robes were made of black velvet with leather trim, his knee boots of fine black leather had intricate silver leaf patterns hand-crafted in them, and even his walking stick was highly polished and shined.

He very well could have been ugly as sin and Ginny still would have found herself attracted to this man she so hated. The fires of hell raged inside Lucius Malfoy, threatening to consume him in the molten pits of his own rage and hatred; he was a dark man, with dark desires for vengeance and blood.

A man after her own heart, not her good and valiant heart, but her black and bloody heart of darkness.

"Hell's Horntail. Leave the bottle." Malfoy told the bartender, placing his walking stick on the table.

"To what, then, do I owe the honour, of being summoned to the presence of the Killer Queen? Please, don't insult us both with the ruse that you need to make a purchase." Malfoy asked.

"Maybe I'd like to kiss and make up." Ginny replied, archly.

Malfoy laughed, sharply. He poured himself a shot of firewhiskey and drank it.

He slammed the shot glass down on the table, and exhaled, smoke wafting out of his nostrils.

That reminded Ginny of Harry. He drank Hell's Horntail almost exclusively, one shot down, smoke out his nose, another shot to follow.

Malfoy lit a cigarette.

English Ovals, the same brand that Harry smoked.

Uncanny.

Does war make devils of us all?

"Kiss and make up, indeed. Do you smoke?"

"No."

"May I?"

"Why not?"

Malfoy smoked his cigarette, and had another shot. He bought her a butterbeer, and after she hand drunk it and he had another smoke and another shot, he called the bartender over, and asked to hire a room.

"For the night or by the hour, milord?"

"For the night. And I want something clean, with a working bathroom. If you stick me in some filthy, roach-infested lice ridden flop, I'll come down here and strangle you where you sit with my bare hands."

The bartender nodded, vigorously, and a few minutes later a house elf came to conduct Lord Malfoy and Ginny to a much nicer room than she thought a dive like the Horntail's Lair would ever have.

When they were alone, Malfoy took off his cloak and began undoing the buttons on his robe.

"I know you must think I'm a fool, but I'm not. I know you want my blood, Miss Weasley. I'm not sure why. I had nothing against you, personally, in the past, and I have nothing against you, now. I was directed by my superior to perform a mission and I did it. Just as you wouldn't hesitate to do the bidding of your superior, Albus Dumbledore. Had I known you were going to grow up to become such a diabolical and interesting witch, I would have picked someone else. If you really want to murder someone, try Tom Riddle. He's the reason we are both here in this filthy dive, tonight." Malfoy said.

"Tom Riddle isn't here." Ginny replied, simply.

"No. He isn't. And I am. Well, if you want my blood so badly, you can have it. It's not as if I enjoy my lot in life, slave to the creature who destroyed to me to keep him from destroying my son. Draco is already on your side, Snape has turned him. I can trust my oldest friend to protect my boy. So, I'd just as soon die today as any day, especially at the hands of a beautiful and wicked young witch with hair the colour of a poppy's blossoms. I'll put up no resistance in the matter. If I can have you, first."

Ginny thought about it.

Could he be lying? His words made sense. Snape, the wicked old screw was a crafty double agent, and it made sense for him to have some double agents of his won. Who more perfect that his own godson, the son of one of Voldemort's most loyal supporters?

Could it be that the friend of her enemy was really her friend, that she and Malfoy were united in their hatred, that they both sought vengeance against the same force that had corrupted and destroyed them both?

Or was it all another self-serving Slytherin lie?

If she had some Verisateum, then she'd know the truth.

It didn't matter. Soon he'd be dead. Violence would be cleaner, neater, more efficient than magic in this situation.

What did it matter, what he said and how he felt? This was the man who was the friend of her enemy, the man who had thrown her under the wheels of Voldemort's master plan to be crushed, the enemy who had casually plotted her death to appease the cruel master who had brutalised him into being the kind of a twisted, alcoholic, drug-addicted fiend who could casually plot the murder of a child to further his own Machiavellian ends.

However, he was preternaturally handsome, reportedly hung like a stallion with the stamina to match; a better man than any of the silly boys she went through like Kleenex.

He had unbuttoned his robes far enough to reveal a well-formed chest sprinkled with whorls of hair the colour of sweet, milky honey, and she wanted to see the rest.

What was the harm in it? If he tried anything she could transform in an instant and maul him to death.

Or, a little magic might be the most efficient solution.

"Fine. Will you swear an oath on it?"

"Of course."

After they swore the oath, Malfoy pointed his finger at her, and lazily cast "Divesto."

She was both naked and impressed that he could do wandless magic.

Even at 15, so could she, and returned his spell.

Ginny's hair was very long, and fell down as far as Lady Godiva's. It made a nest, a web in which to ensnare her victim tumbling all around her when she lay down in the bed.

"Gods, you are like the poppy, blood red and milky white and magnificent." Malfoy breathed.

He climbed into the bed with her, and lay down beside her.

Unlike her callow young lovers, he didn't just climb on top of her after a few sloppy kisses and start pumping away.

If this was the last fuck he was ever going to have in his life, he wanted to savour it.

He lingered long over Ginny's slender, coltish figure, coaxing her nipples to the length of the first joint of his finger with his hands and his mouth and his tongue.

She moaned, and undulated on the bed of her hair like a snake, her violet eyes opening and closing, fixing greedily on his long, lean body with wild lust.

She twined her legs and her arms around his arms, and his thighs, and his long, slender neck, she buried her face in his fine Elvish hair as he worked untoward miracles on her nipples and wrapped her fingers around and around the fine strands as Malfoy worked even more untoward miracles on her pussy with his prodigious tongue and his nimble fingers.

She purred, he noticed, maddeningly, purred like a great cat and closed her eyes and ripped the sheet in two with her hands, roaring magnificently as she came.

All of her limbs came undone and Ginny swooned, her eyelids drooping and wavering. When she could focus her vision again she beheld a vision, a vision of a great golden god kneeling between her legs, his immense cock standing proudly at attention, swollen to a most unusual size in preparation of some great glorious copulation, the kind they had at the beginning of time.

It was a ridiculous thing to think, but the words sounded good together, and seemed to slide against one another in her mind as she sat up and leaned forward across Malfoy's hairy, muscular thighs and slid her mouth completely down the length of his cock, swallowing like a snake until she felt his balls against her chin, and her nose was snuffling in another patch of honey coloured whorls of hair.

Malfoy's eyes lolled in his head and he moaned at the heavy, obscene pleasure of it. He looked down at the girl, her red hair spread across his thighs, and the bed, and ran his hands over her lovely white body. This, this was the supreme thrill, like the thrill of the rush, deadly pleasure, a pleasure that might kill him the next time he partook of it, but yet he could not stop.

She was the poppy, and Lucius Malfoy was hooked, again.

Ginny fell back into the pillows, panting, writhing, twining her legs high around Malfoy's waist. Gratefully, he drove into her and they both cried out, sharply, Ginny's back arching up from the mattress.

It was truly a great glorious copulation, like the kind they had at the beginning of time. She matched his rhythm, meeting him thrust for thrust, they could feel their bones grinding together, working in gasps and sweat and swearing to the finish, a big finish, with Malfoy pulling Ginny up off the mattress, her sitting astride him, her back arching and the long nipples on her champagne glass breasts pointing at the ceiling as she came and then he did, the force of her orgasm ushering in his own.

It felt like a sledgehammer to the forehead, a supreme and radical pleasure that broke his brains into atoms and electrons and stardust.

For that one glorious moment, they found peace.

Malfoy fell onto his back, and stretched out his legs and Ginny fell on top of him, across his chest and they both fell into a long, deep nod.

Ginny woke up first, stuck to Malfoy with sweat and come and wet.

She pulled herself away from him, and laughed bitterly.

Because she could no more destroy this man than she could slash a Picasso to ribbons.

Besides, he could serve her better in life than in death. Loose lips sink ships, and any bit of information she got from Malfoy she could pass on to Hermione, who would report it back to spymaster Snape.

* * *

Her laugh awakened Malfoy, and he smiled, arching his eyebrow.

"You made a Devil's bargain with me, Malfoy, you Slytherin son-of-a bitch. You're lucky this time. Next time I may not be in such a forgiving mood."

"And I intend to stand behind it, my poisonous Poppy. You may kill me when you wish; I place my life in your hands every time I take my pleasure with you, not knowing when will be my last." Malfoy replied.

Ginny understood his allusion to the poppy, and shook her head as she got up from the bed on unsteady legs.

"Malfoy, you're a madman. A fucking madman."

"You really must call me Luke, Poppy. Malfoy is so formal. And we can't have any formalities between us, can we?" he replied.

"You really are mad." Ginny marvelled.

"Completely. So would you be, if you were me."

Ginny went into the bathroom, took a shower and got dressed.

"Shall I meet you here next week, same day, same time?"

Malfoy sat up.

"Good Gods, no! This is the sort of dive you fuck some whorey bint in. I want you to come to Malfoy Manor. We'll meet at the public apparition point in Diagon Alley. You do know how to illegally apparate, don't you?"

"Of course. But what about Mrs. Malfoy?"

"She only likes men."

"That's not what I meant!"

"Oh, I see. No, no, my dear girl, Mrs. Malfoy and I have an open marriage. This is her night out and my night in. I have a special room in my house for just these sorts of occasions? Can I expect you, every Thursday?"

"Until I run out of use for you."

"Then I will expect the undertaker on Friday. I'll make a standing appointment with him. And if you really must kill me, use the Killing Curse. The Aurors will never prosecute you for disposing of the likes of me, and my family will be able to have an open casket funeral."

That sounded fair enough to Ginny.

"Will you swear an Oath, Poppy?"

"I will."

They swore another oath, and Ginny got dressed to leave.

"Wait for me. A witch shouldn't walk these streets alone at night, not even a witch of your calibre."

* * *

Malfoy saw her right to the Hogsmeade public apparition point, and Ginny made her way back to Hogwarts through the secret passage.

On her way back to Gryffindor Tower, she ran into Professor Snape carrying an unconscious Harry through the hallway.

"What are you doing out of your Common Room at this hour of the night, Miss Weasley?" he demanded.

"I was looking for Harry. Poor Harry, he never gets to his bed if Hermione and I don't see to him."

"Mr. Potter's welfare is not yours or Miss Granger's responsibility. But, since you are here, I will only take five points from Gryffindor if you will help me arrange him into bed."

"Professor, shouldn't something be done about Harry?"

"I am trying, Miss Weasley. I am trying. But no one seems to want to listen to me. You get his feet."

_Oh my! What's more important to Ginny, secrets and shagging, or revenge? Will she take Malfoy up on his offer, or will she take his life? Will hard-living Harry and tough as nails Ginny find love, or something like it, together? Or will they both end up doing time? You'd better turn in to Killer Queen, Part Two for the answers to these questions, and more!_


	2. Stuck in a Rut

**Chapter Two: Stuck in a Rut**

When Ginny woke up on Friday morning, she decided she was irrevocably, irretrievably mad.

All of her friends warned her that her Malfoy project, which they preferred to refer to as her insane obsessive vendetta, was no good for her, and that it would lead her into madness.

And they were right. Killing him, that she expected. But shagging him, and making some kind of weird agreement that she could come and kill him on any given Thursday as long as she shagged him, first?

Insanity! What the hell could provoke her to do something like that?

It was a good thing it was Friday, as Friday was Harry's most favourite day to raise hell.

She was looking forward to an evening of dubious fun and games with Harry all day long, and half the evening, waiting fully dressed under her blankets for 9:30 bed check to be over, and that all-too familiar invitation, seemingly from thin air.

"C'mon, Ginny. Today is a good day to die."

Ginny pulled up Harry's Invisibility Cloak and got under it with him.

"For some other punters, it fucking well is. Let's go." She enthused.

The Marauder's Map conducted them as far as Hogsmeade, and to the public apparition point, where they both illegally apparated to Knockturn Alley. It was illegal, of course, for Harry to get potted in any of the local bars, but, in Knockturn Alley, nobody was worried about anything like that. As long as your money was silver or gold and shiny, it was good to buy whatever you wanted.

For starters, all Harry wanted in his favourite hangout, the Horntail's Lair, was a bottle of Hell's Horntail.

He lit up an English Oval and asked the bartender to leave the bottle.

One shot down, smoke out his nose, and another shot down.

Smoke out his nose and his mouth.

Smoke rings, actually.

Harry poured another glass and lifted it to Ginny.

"Happy days, Ginny, luv." He said, winking wryly.

Ginny picked up her glass of butterbeer and clinked it with Harry's shot glass.

"Happy days, Harry." She replied.

It was a fairly quiet night. Ginny sat there, watching Harry get pissed, and politely declined the bump of coke he offered her.

None of the regulars fucked about with Harry, or Ginny. Professor Snape repeatedly told Harry that when you were 15, you were a man, and with Harry, it at least looked to be true. At 16, he was six foot one, and though he was the long-limbed and lanky type, he had broad shoulders and flat, wiry muscles in which was coiled a great deal of strength. Ginny was pretty much his female equivalent, though she was five feet four, and they both had the constitution of an Ox.

Harry and Ginny, in her lioness form or out of it, had laid waste to the Horntail's Nest and its inhabitants a few times, enough times for the regulars to give the two teenagers a wide berth.

Not everyone who came in, however, especially on a Friday night, was a regular.

It was close to closing time when a tall, stringy-haired strung-out looking wizard came in with his equally tall and strung out looking girlfriend, and another wizard, who was squat, fat, and square, with blue hair and a bunch of jailhouse tattoos.

Though you couldn't see it on them, the smell of blood and the stink of death clung to all three of them. It was quite fresh, too; they were coming to the Nest to commemorate murdering someone.

"Finish your drink and let's get the fuck out of 'ere, Harry." Ginny said, anxiously.

"Why? Is it that lot?" Harry asked.

"Yeah. I'll explain later."

Of course, it was already too late.

They were halfway to the door when the fat one stepped out in front of them.

"Ain't yer 'Arry Potter?" he asked.

"Sure, mate. S'cuse me." Harry said.

"You're out to kill the Dark Lord, ain't yer, Potter?"

"I'm out to kill a lot of blokes. But right now, I'm drunk, and I just wanna go 'ome." Harry replied.

The skinny one joined him.

He smiled yellowy with a mouth full of cracked and rotten junkie teeth.

"You ain't gonna make it." He said.

Harry broke the skinny one's nose, then he grabbed him by the throat and started choking him.

Ginny headed his girlfriend off at the pass, shouting "Expelliarmus!" , and following it with a punch.

The fat one hit Harry over the back of the head with a chair, but Harry kept choking the skinny one; cursing him and shaking him like a rag doll.

"I wanna go home, you skinny fuck!" was the most coherent thing he said.

The girl and the fat bastard just stood there, mouths agape in shock. They were terrified that Harry was going to kill the skinny one, but they were just as terrified that if they moved, Ginny was going to kill them.

This wasn't just their usual fight; Ginny realised that Harry was going to kill this bloke.

Clearly, these people weren't hardened murderers

The fat one took out his wnad and raised both his arms in the air.

"I won't do nuffin! He's gonna kill me brother! Do summat!" he entreated Ginny.

Ginny thought about it. Maybe it was an animal they killed. Maybe they smelled of blood and death because they were just a bunch of pathetic junkies on their last legs trying to get a drink or two in. No matter the circumstances, it wasn't up to Harry to decide to kill any of them.

"Harry, are you mad! Fucking let him go!" Ginny yelled.

Harry wasn't listening. He was swearing, horribly, incoherently, and Skinny Junkie's eyes were beginning to bulge out.

Insanity on top of insanity. First Malfoy and now this. Where was it going to end?

It was times like this that Ginny wished she was the girl she wrote her mother about, a nice, quiet, studious girl who got into a few fights on occasion, played Quidditch and went quite virginally steady with a cleaned-up version of Harry Potter.

Ginny abruptly transformed, her clothes tearing into pieces.

She grabbed Harry by the back of his jacket in her mouth and hauled him off of Skinny Junkie. Then, she stood between the three and Harry, roaring with all her might.

Fat Fuck and Junkie Girlfriend were too busy attending to Skinny Junkie to worry about Harry.

Ginny tossed him onto her back, and made for the door.

She ran, and she kept running until they reached the public apparition point.

Harry took off his coat.

"Here, put this on. I'm sorry, Ginny. I dunno what come over me. I just wanted that fuck to get out of me way so I could go 'ome an' go to bed." Harry admitted.

Ginny changed back and put Harry's coat on. It was almost as long as her robes, and could have been mistaken for same from afar.

"You almost killed him. Helluva Friday night, Harry, you crazy motherfucker." She said.

Harry laughed nervously, lit up, and they apparated back to Hogsmeade.

* * *

Saturday was a repeat of Friday, except Harry didn't get into a fight, and she had to half-carry him back to Hogwarts and have Ron help her put him to bed. She spent most of Sunday doing homework, and on Monday, she and Hermione studied together. On Tuesday, she met one of her Quidditch groupies in the course of having an illicit butterbeer at the Hog's Head, and had a quick knee-trembler beside Aberforth Dumbledore's goat sheds. It wasn't very interesting, and she came sort of half-heartedly, with the goats regarding the whole affair with sympathy.

On Wednesday, Harry had sufficiently recovered from the weekend's debauches to sally forth to the Horntail's Nest, again, as opposed to getting high and pissed and doing his shagging on school grounds.

Ginny began to feel as if she was stuck in a rut. Her life was an endless hamster wheel of studying, plotting, nursemaiding Harry and anonymous and commonly uninteresting knee tremblers with wizards she wouldn't want to have a cup of tea with under any other circumstances.

For lack of anything better to do, she kept her appointment at Malfoy Manor.

Ginny tried not to look like a gobsmacked rube as a house-elf led her through the Malfoy's immense ancestral estate. It was an actual fucking castle, not quite as big as Hogwarts, but there were only three people and an army of house elves living in it.

He led her up what seemed like at least ten different flights of stairs, and then into a room at the top of a tower.

It was about as big as the Gryffindor common room, and contained the biggest bed she had ever seen, and also a table and two chairs, among other things, at which Malfoy, that is, Luke, sat.

"Come in, Poppy. Are you hungry?"

"Starving. I studied through dinner. And lunch."

"What would you like to eat?"

Ginny thought about it.

"Well, I wouldn't mind macaroni cheese and a nice bit of Shepherd's Pie." She said.

"You heard the lady, Keegan."

"Yes, Master!" the house elf squeaked.

He left and closed the door, and Ginny went and sat down in the chair opposite Malfoy.

He was dressed far more casually than he had been at their first meeting, in a dressing gown with Slytherin colours.

"Tea?"

"Yes, please."

Ginny had winced when she sat down, and she winced when she reached for the tea.

"Are you hurt?" Malfoy asked.

"Not too badly. Just a few broken knuckles, sprained shoulder, bruised ribs, arm's mostly healed now. A few other lumps and bumps. Nothing serious." Ginny said, dismissively.

"What do you consider hurt badly? Missing limbs?"

"Something like that. Between Quidditch, animagus studies, and adventures with Harry, I get banged around a lot. You learn to live with pain, after a while." Ginny said.

"Poppy, you are only 16. And you're not even five and a half feet tall, and I doubt if you even weigh ten stone. You shouldn't be getting banged around at all." Malfoy replied.

Keegan returned with the food, and Ginny started shovelling it in.

She was really hungry.

"Why are you missing meals? Is the food going off? If it is, those house elves will rue the day they joined that ridiculous SPEW."

"I sleep through lunch, and study through dinner. Then I grab something at night after I've seen Harry to bed." Ginny explained.

Malfoy was beginning to look upon his young and newly-minted mistress in his professional capacity. He was high up in the Ministry's Child and Adolescent Welfare Department, ironically enough.

The shred of decency left in Lucius Malfoy wanted to make sure that what had happened to him when he was a boy would not happen to other young witches and wizards. Even Mudbloods didn't deserve to be exploited and abused.

"If you keep on like this, something horrible is going to happen to you." He warned her.

This was ridiculous. Why should he care about the welfare of this Gryffindor chit who had become a passing obsession of his. Professional curiosity? Suicidal tendencies? Guilt because it was his actions that led her astray?

A combination of the three. Damn that shred of decency, he had to start drinking more.

"I know it. I feel like I'm stuck in a rut. On the fucking hamster wheel to nowhere. I mean all the fights and the studying and the late nights and the anonymous shagging, it's all just become a blur. I want to get off this fucking merry-go-round of shit, but I'm fucked if I know how to do it." Ginny replied.

Malfoy was about to ask her where the fuck her parents were in all this, and then he thought of Arthur Weasley in his office spending three days trying to work a simple telephone, and Molly Weasley home in her sunny cottage amongst the gently green and rolling hills of Devonshire, in her little world of children and grandchildren and biscuits in the kitchen. They were involved in the war, but they had no idea what a filthy war it was and weren't close enough to it to get as dirty as their daughter had. Especially spending so much time with Potter, who was positively radioactive with fallout from this dirty little war. The Weasleys not only had no idea what their youngest child was up to, if they had known they'd be totally out of their depth.

"May I make an few suggestions, before you do away with me?" Malfoy asked, drily.

"Why not?"

"First, you should consider taking on lovers instead of fucking any wizard who comes along when you're feeling fruity. Contraceptive charms and devices are not foolproof, and rubbers, even the magical kind, can't protect you every time from every STD. You don't have to get involved, or fall in love, just make sure the wizard is someone you either trust implicitly or can't trust at all, so that you know where you stand. And make sure he's a man, stop fucking boys, they'll ruin you. Second, quit using force when you should be using magic. You're a witch, not a prize fighter. And finally, it sounds to me like Mr. Potter needs more help than you can give him. I know it goes against everything a Gryffindor stands for, but snitch to Snape. He'll help you look after Potter, and he won't go telling tales that will get either of you expelled. And, by the Mother and the Horned King, and the burning eye of Balor, stay out of Knockturn Alley! Let Potter drink at the school, or at the Hog's Head, Aberforth will serve anyone with money. You think you can handle Knockturn Alley but you can't. Not with an army of lionesses. They will kill both of you, and your families won't even get to bury your bodies. I was sold on those streets when I was your age, I should know." He said.

Ginny looked at Lucius Malfoy like she had never seen him before in her life.

"Why do you care?" she asked.

"Selfish reasons. I don't want anyone to spoil you for me." He replied.

She could believe that

* * *

.

In an undisclosed location, where even the many eyes and ears of Tom Riddle could neither see nor hear them, two old friends met in secret to discuss matters of state.

"So, I hear you've been shagging the Weasley girl. You're a real pervert, you know that, Luke?" Snape marvelled.

He and Malfoy both lit up.

"I'm just trying to finish the educational process I started, Sev. Did a little bird named Granger tell you that?"

"I refuse to disclose my sources."

"Well, I refuse to disclose mine as well, but I have something to tell you about Potter that you're not going to like. I know that you…"

Malfoy paused. He stopped himself from saying what he was going to say, and chose his words more carefully.

"…that you feel some obligation regarding his welfare, considering your relationship with his mother."

Snape raised an eyebrow.

"How bad is it?"

"Worse. He's been knocking about in Knockturn Alley, frequenting the Horntail's Lair. And my brave but extremely stupid little Gryffindor lioness had been accompanying him. It's not good, Severus. I haven't seen Potter, but the last time I saw her she had bruises all over her body and she could hardly lift a teacup. I had my personal medi-wizard come and look after her. She was badly hurt, several broken bones. Some of which had already healed on their own. Badly. He had to break her arm again and repair it so that the pain to her shoulder every time she grasps something in her left hand would stop. She didn't make a sound. Still, someone is going to kill both of them. Or wosre for the girl. Now, I could owl the Weasleys in my official capacity and I'm sure they would see to it that their little girl was safe, even if they had to home school her and chain her up in her bedroom and ward the whole house. But no one gives a fuck about young Potter. His relatives would just as well see him dead, and they expect him to come to no good. I'll leave it to you, then, Severus." Malfoy replied.

Snape looked furious, and he said, "Thank you, Luke, I'll see to it this little game of Potter's is over right away." through clenched teeth, and apparated back to Hogwarts without saying goodbye.

Malfoy finished his cigarette, thinking that if it wasn't for what he and Narcissa went through to protect Draco, that his son would probably be in the same spot as Harry Potter.

Lord Malfoy hurried home, with the intention to contact his master, and beg him one more time to stop using Draco as a pusher at Hogwarts.

Even though he knew it could have been worse.

Much worse.

* * *

A burst of wind and soot and green smoke actually blew forcefully out of the hearth in the Gryffindor common room before Snape emerged from the hearth, with a black, angry look on his face, like he was the Devil himself.

"Potter! You're coming with me! You too, Weasley. Not you, Mr. Weasley. Your sister." Snape snapped.

"She didn't do anything wrong, P-P-P-Professor. Don't hurt her. Take me, instead. I did it." Ron volunteered.

"Mr. Weasley, I am not going to do anything to hurt your sister. Even though she is not in my house, she is my student, and it is my responsibility to see to it no one harms her. Especially your friend, Potter, here." Snape snarled.

Harry was half-crocked, as usual.

"I didn't do nothin' to harm Ginny, yuh wicked-"

Snape cut off Harry's bravado by grabbing him by his tee shirt and lifting him up in the air.

"You shut your pie hole, boy, or by Christ, I'll shut it for you!" he threatened.

Harry was surprised that Snape could lift him into the air with one arm, casually, like he was a rag doll, and surprised to hear Snape invoke the god of the good old C of E in which they were both raised.

He shut his pie hole.

Snape ushered both of his students into the hearth, and flooed to his office in a flash of green.

"What was he so mad about?" Ron asked Hermione.

Hermione decided to tell Ron the truth. Maybe he could get it through Harry's head that he was being a real toerag.

"Harry's been going to Knockturn Alley on a regular basis. Ginny's afraid when he's drunk and out of it someone will rob him or hurt him, or something, so she goes with him to watch his back. Don't tell your parents, Ron. I'm sure the school will take care of it." Hermione added, hastily at the end.

"The school and my parents my arse! I'm telling George and Fred and we'll take care of it! Has Harry lost his mind?" Ron replied.

"I think so." Hermione answered.

* * *

Ginny and Harry found themselves in Snape's office. He closed, locked and warded the doors, and then double-checked everything.

When Snape turned around, Harry and Ginny were both sitting quietly in the two chairs opposite his desk.

Snape had the sudden impulse to knock Potter out of the chair and scream at him, to try and beat some sense into him. That, however was the approach Tobias always used with him, and it never worked. Instead, Snape sat down in his chair on the opposite side of the desk.

"Let's get right to the point. Potter, I know that you have been sneaking off school grounds late at night. I know you've been illegally apparating from Hogsmeade to Knockturn Alley, and I know you have been throwing Miss Weasley's weight around at the Horntail's Nest. I'm not going to ask you what you were thinking, because I know that you are too much of a drunken, self-centred, narcissistic little shit to think. I am not surprised that you have no regard for your own life. I am surprised, however that you have no regard for Miss Weasley's life. Before you get upset with me, Miss Weasley, I am not saying this because you are a woman and fully half Potter's size. I believe that you can hold your own in most situations. No witch, or wizard, for that matter, however should be asked to single-handedly face down the kind of degenerate human scum that inhabit Knockturn Alley, and certainly not on a regular basis. It is not fair to Miss Weasley, Potter, to have to put her life and her bodily integrity at risk in order for you to get pissed, play the big man, and shag disreputable Potter groupies in unmentionably filthy circumstances. You should be ashamed of yourself to place a witch you call your friend in such circumstances."

Ginny wasn't too fond of Snape, but when he said what he said she could have kissed him.

"Awww, I'm not puttin' Ginny in harm's way." Harry protested.

"Really? I have here a parchment written up by a medi-wizard that says otherwise. He recently treated Miss Weasley for five broken knuckles and a torn-out fingernail, three cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder, assorted contusions and abrasions, and a large gash to the side of the mouth, commensurate with being punched repeatedly in the face. He also had to re-break her left arm, a previous fracture in it had healed disastrously wring, so that Miss Weasley could not use that arm or her left hand without considerable pain. She didn't dare go to the infirmary, for fear that Madame Pomfrey would question her, and that you would get in trouble. I would say you are putting Miss Weasley in the way of a great deal of harm." Snape informed him.

Harry looked shocked.

"Why didn't you tell me you were hurt that bad?" he asked Ginny.

"It's not in me nature to complain." She replied.

"If only you could be so noble and stoic, Potter. Unfortunately, you have decided on whiny and drunk, instead. You will be doing a special detention with me from midnight until 2AM every night, until the end of the school year. I will be personally checking your bed at four and six, and you had better be in it. For the rest of the school year, you may not leave this campus unless someone in 

your family dies or you need to go to St. Mungo's, unless you are in the company of a faculty member. I realise you will find some way to get into trouble despite these rules, but at least you will not be doing so in Knockturn Alley. I have just as may eyes and ears there as Lord Voldemort does, and if I hear that you have been back to your old haunts, I'll add two hours after school detention per day to your punishments. One hundred points from Gryffindor."

"It's a fair cop." Harry commented, the wheels in his mind already turning.

"Yes, it is. You may both go back to your Common Room, now." Snape finished.

"Aren't you going to punish me, Professor?"

"For doing your sworn duty as a soldier in Dumbledore's Army? Certainly not." Snape replied.

* * *

Time passed, quickly.

Harry didn't stop boozing, balling or getting high. He just stopped doing it in Knockturn Alley, which was a great relief to Ginny.

He tried to go back, but Snape had been there ahead of him and put the word out that no one was to so much as sell a straight cigarette to Harry Potter in Knockturn Alley, and the habitués thereof were frightened enough of the wizard who was reported to be both Albus Dumbledore's and Tom Riddle's right hand man to listen to him.

Snape found out about Harry's return trip, and his two extra hours of detention kicked in.

Two more blessed hours that Ginny didn't have to worry about Harry.

She began sleeping through the night, eating regular meals and studying at regular times. Her injuries healed, and Harry's new rules seemed to be doing him some good; he didn't seem quite as drunk and out of control as before.

They still made secret forays out of Hogwarts under his Invisibility Cloak, but only to the Hog's Head, and Aberforth Dumbledore was only willing to sell him stout and beer, no hard liquor, so Ginny actually began having a worry-free and pleasant good time when she and Harry went out for their illicit nights on the town.

She did not kill Malfoy, who became Luke somewhere along the line. She decided that, at some point, if he really started pissing her off, or if she caught him plotting anything truly heinous, then she'd kill him.

In the mean time, Ginny was getting used to shagging in a bed, staying overnight, and actually having conversations with the person she was fucking. Not to mention coming back more than once. Luke's feelings about her were thankfully free of the sort of sloshy sentiments Ginny liked 

to avoid, and he was generally less snarky and hard to get along with than Snape, although certainly he was crazy as a shithouse rat.

Ginny mulled over candidates for other partners to fill up her dance card, and passed on what little war-related information she got from Luke to Hermione, who passed it onto Snape.

Indeed, her life settled down enough that she really began to enjoy it, and, as All Hallows Eve approached, she made plans to invite another rooster into the henhouse. She already had a man she knew she couldn't trust, now it was time for one she could trust, implicitly.

It was October, and the night of the full harvest moon was almost upon her.


	3. Wild Kingdom

**Chapter Three: Wild Kingdom**

Remus Lupin was trying very hard to change his life, completely.

To that end, he had isolated himself completely in a lonely cottage on the windswept moors that surrounded Hogwarts Castle.

After his performance at the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, a Centurion of the Knights of Albion visited him, and asked him to join.

It was quite an honour for one so young, but, although he didn't like to toot his own horn, Lupin was quite a powerful wizard. He could do most of the spells the average fifth year could easily without his wand, and he was steeped and well versed in the history, lore and occult practise from which magic sprung.

As such, he knew all that an un-inducted wizard could know about the Knights of Albion. They had existed, and yet not existed since before the One Ring was forged in Mordor.

They were an ancient and secret fraternal order of shape-shifting or hybrid beings. Animagi, were-wolves and other were-animals, both wizards and Muggles, fauns, satyrs, merpeople, centaurs, veelas, that sort of thing. They committed themselves to working for peace and harmony between witches, wizards, Muggles and hybrid and shape-shifting beings. The highest ranking member is the Doge, then the Centurions, then the Knights, and then the thousands of members in the lowest order, the Yeomen, who have renounced their predatory or anti-human nature. They secretly worked in-concert with Muggle and Wizarding society.

A lycanthrope had to be a powerful wizard to be asked to join the Fraternal Order of the Knights of Albion. Through the use of ancient and very complicated rites, spells, and great discipline, a shape shifters could learn to control their transformations and even retain their won sensibilities and control of themselves in their animal form.

It had only been a few months since he had their symbol, the Eye of Horus, tattooed in the usual place in the palm of his right hand.

Lupin was used to privation and hard work, but the Rites of Transformation were exhausting and consumed most of his waking hours.

He had passed the first hurdle already, quite an achievement for such a new member; he had been able to prevent one transformation at the full moon.

The next step was to try and retain his sense of self during his next transformation.

Remus wasn't looking forward to it. Sirius had been a Knight, it would have been good to have a friend in the Knights to help him.

But Remus was alone. He was still keeping Tonks at arm's length; until he could complete all of the Rites he couldn't be sure she wouldn't be in danger.

Or, at least, he wanted to be alone.

But there was a certain Gryffindor lioness who refused to abandon the mentor who had painstakingly trained her to become an animagus.

Remus intended, if and when he became a Knight, to propose Ginny for membership in the Knights, or, if he didn't, to ask the Knight who had proposed him to propose Ginny.

She was his link to the outside world, bringing him news of what was going on at Hogwarts, with the war effort, and news in general.

Lupin was aggrieved to hear that what he and the other Order members had hoped was just youthful high spirits on Harry's part was beginning to become an alcohol problem. He was, however, even more aggrieved to discover that Ginny had become one of Lucius Malfoy's mistresses, on the condition that she could kill him at any time she wanted.

That kind of twisted head game was typical of twisted Malfoy. Remus felt pity for his enemy; he knew that Malfoy was a damned and broken man going through the motions of loyalty to a Dark Master even he feared and hated in order to save his son from the fate he had suffered. He even managed to do a fairly decent job at the Welfare Office, and didn't use that particular position to put any child in care whose family he didn't like.

Lupin, however was not fool enough to play with fire and think for a moment that his enemy was not dangerous. He would begin drinking heavily and using Purple Doom, again, and find a way around the oaths he had sworn to Ginny, and then he would kill her.

Even if the treacherous Slytherin did not find some way to physically destroy Ginny, there was still her soul to worry about. Newly 16, Ginny was on the threshold of adulthood, and she had developed some disturbing qualities. She was cheerfully violent, and seemed to have little or no feelings of remorse, and suffered from a general lack of conscience. She lived by her animal instincts, according to her whims of the moment, as if her true form was animal and not human. She was, essentially a creature of pure lust, living on a combination of human whim and animal instinct, without rhyme or reason, or thoughts of the future, whether is was twenty years from now, or tomorrow.

A twisted, emotionally crippled psychopath like Malfoy would only reinforce those qualities, and, under his influence Remus' pupil might be similarly corrupted, and possibly even turned to the other side.

Remus stopped discouraging Ginny from coming to see him.

He had to get her away from Lucius Malfoy at any cost, and find some way to force her to confront the fact that, as much as she wished it not to be so, she was a complex human being with the complex emotions of a human being, not a simple animal living on instinct.

* * *

The sun was setting on the night of the harvest moon when Remus heard scratching on his door and he opened it to admit a huge lioness with a reddish tinge to her coat.

He observed that there were no bruises, scratches or other marks of violence on the great cat's coat. The fact that Ginny had gotten and followed some good advice from Lucius Malfoy disturbed and intrigued Remus. Was it possible that the shred of decency in him was struggling to take over? Or was it a ruse designed to ensnare them all?

He thought to himself that it might be a good time for Albus to send Snape to test the waters.

If they could turn Malfoy, it would be a great coup for The Plan.

Still, that was Snape's work, not Ginny's.

She transformed, stretching lazily across the floor.

_I am not a man. I am a teacher. She is not a naked girl of the age of consent, she is my student._

"Change back into a lioness, Ginny. It's not safe for you to be human around me, I'm not sure if I can perform that part of the rite successfully."

"Yes, Professor Lupin."

It was funny, really. After thirty some years of being almost totally ignored by women, unless they were freaky, bless their freaky hearts, he had two beautiful young women lusting after him.

And with Ginny Weasley, it was all lust. Watching her stretch lazily across his floor, he could see the lack of guile and guilt in the violet eyes that invited him to do what he liked with her. Or what she liked, more like it. As a man with the heightened senses of an animal, it was something Lupin could discern and understand better than most. Bloodlust, lust for life, lust for revenge; it all boiled down to lust.

That was most likely what Malfoy was taken with, in her.

At least he didn't have to think about such things when she was a great cat, prowling around his kitchen, and that was why he made her transform, again.

He had more important things to worry about, tonight.

As night fell, Ginny dozed contentedly by the hearth.

* * *

When she was in her lioness form, she retained her human behaviour and emotions, but to a great extent animal instinct took over. Though Ginny was largely a creature of animal instinct in her human form, it was nice to have her human consciousness quiet and completely submerged, and to just lie there and be a lion. Some animagi fought the intrusions of their animal consciousness when they were in human form and vice versa, but Ginny embraced both.

She was eyeing what looked like a rat peeping out of a hole behind the stove when she heard a crash from the bedroom and a scream that turned into a horrible howl. More horrible than the usual sound of her mentor joining her in the animal state.

Ginny got to her feet, her shoulders raised, tensed to spring.

She relaxed a little when the werewolf entered the room.

As a lion, Ginny had nothing to fear from the strange, wolfish creature, even though it walked on two legs instead of four.

Normally, it was an animal with the yellow eyes of an animal and no hint of humanity in it.

This time was different.

As if in a daze, the werewolf staggered to the door and walked out into the moonlight to howl.

Ginny was about to follow it out on their usual hunt when it came back and opened the door for her.

She growled, questioningly, and the werewolf nodded its head, and barked.

She looked into its eyes and saw Remus Lupin there.

He had done it.

Ginny roared in triumph and Remus howled.

Then they ran across the moor, heading for the woods.

* * *

As they were heading back to the cottage just before dawn, Ginny transformed back into her human form.

Remus growled, sharply.

"Don't snarl at me, Professor. You've mastered the second part of the rite and I know an animagus in human form is safe around you, now. Nobody can see I'm naked. Not even you, my hair covers most of my body."

But there were flashes of white in with the red, and the sun was coming up.

By the time they got to the cottage the first fingers of dawn were creeping across the sky, and the transformation of sound from howl to scream let Ginny know that Professor Lupin was human again.

He saw the sun rising through his bedroom window, as Ginny opened the shutters, and he also saw that she was still naked.

Ginny knew more about werewolves than most students did. She knew what they didn't put in the DADA books about the state a man is in right after he transforms back into his own body.

Tonks knew about it as well, that was why Lupin warded himself away from her the morning after a full moon. She would not have hesitated to take advantage of him, and now, Ginny Weasley, a witch of pure lust, wasn't going to hesitate to, either.

"I suppose it will do me no good to tell you to put your clothes on and be a good girl." Remus said.

"No, Professor, it won't."

He could smell the heavy, musky scent of her arousal, it was an intensely female smell, untempered by the smell of fear, or the tremours of guilt. He couldn't help put growl a little bit in his throat when she lay down next to him.

Ginny rubbed her hands across one of the scars on his chest.

He was a lot hairier than Luke was, coarse, wiry, sandy-coloured hair, and there were scars all over his body, and calluses on his palms and fingertips.

She purred when he touched her, a low, thrilling sound from deep in her throat that made the hair on Remus' neck stand on end and filled him with inordinate, untempered animal lust.

"Wow. Blimey, Remus, you're bigger than Luke Malfoy is! I guess it's true what they say about werewolves." Ginny observed, chuckling, throatily.

She reached down to caress the object of her admiration, and Remus Lupin's last coherent thought was that he had decided to get her away from Malfoy at any cost, and if this was it, then, well he was happily obligated, wasn't he?

Remus turned Ginny's face towards his and kissed her with a violent intensity. Luke wasn't much for kissing on the lips, and most of her groupies had been lousy kissers, so Ginny was struck by what a good kisser Remus was.

His calloused palms and fingertips caressed her with a greater urgency and intensity; he didn't want to orchestrate an orgasmic experience like Luke did, he wanted to fuck.

Ginny found herself gasping and parting for breath; Remus kept making this noise in his throat that was half a growl and half a moan; he didn't tease her body idly; he sucked hungrily at her nipples, weaving his tongue in furious circles, he thrust his hand between her legs and rubbed her nub with great urgency as she rode his fingers.

She came off quickly and explosively, and while she was still coming he went down on her, still making that growling, moaning sound and she came off again, roaring like a cat in heat.

Ginny turned over on her back, stretching and arching.

She'd never been had from behind, she didn't trust Luke not to take the opportunity to give her one up the bum.

Remus bent his body over hers as he settled his flanks between her thighs.

"I know you're going to like this." He whispered in her ear.

He gave it to her all at once, all the way, as deeply as he dared, over and over again, giving her the occasional playful smack on the bum.

She found herself moaning and keening and laughing all at the same time. Pushing back against Remus and shouting out terribly filthy things.

She came again before he did, violently, harder than she'd ever come before and melted into the mattress.

She was scarcely aware of him gently turning her over onto her back.

He kissed her as he eased himself in once again, and although it felt nice Ginny felt like she was somewhere in another world, and then Remus shifted his weight or rolled his hips or did something because all of the sudden she was incredibly hot again, and she had her arms around him and her legs around him and she had to have him, had to have it all, had to have him again, and this time they both came.

Remus howled into the cool morning air, and they both melted into the mattress.

"Are you always like this, Remus, or just when you've recently transformed?" Ginny asked.

"You'll have to come back again and find out. Close the shutters, luv, I'm knackered."

Ginny closed the shutters and returned to bed.

Remus was already half asleep, but he rolled over and moved his body close to hers and put his arm around her.

Then he fell asleep.

She and Luke slept in the same bed, but he was not one for cuddling. This was Ginny's first experience with same, and she nestled tentatively against her new lover.

She felt sort of warm and happy and nice, basking in a rosy afterglow.

"I could get used to this." She said, to no one in particular, and fell asleep.


	4. Ginnylocks and the Three Blokes

**Chapter 4: Ginnylocks and the Three Blokes**

Thursday was beginning to pass into Friday morning at Malfoy Manor, and Lucius Malfoy was still alive. He was, however, feeling quite exhausted.

Idly, he wondered how many legions of spotty young men it took to satisfy the lusts of this lioness, who lay thoughtfully in the bed beside him.

He was busy congratulating himself for a job well done with a celebratory smoke when Ginny fixed a look of intense concentration on him, as if she were having some kind of realisation.

An unpleasant realisation, knowing her.

"Can I have one of those, Luke?"

Malfoy looked down his nose at her, an expression of haughty indignation on his patrician features.

"Certainly not! I refuse to be the one to teach you any more bad habits." He replied.

"Just one puff. C'mon, don't be a cunt." Ginny wheedled.

"Fine. One puff."

Ginny took a puff on the cigarette, and began to cough and curse.

"That's fucking disgusting! I can't believe you pay to have that taste in your mouth!" she exclaimed, handing the cigarette back at him.

Malfoy, meanwhile, was laughing at her, and Ginny growled, menacingly.

"You're not going to kill me over a little thing like that, are you?"

"I might. Hoity-toity toffee-nosed git." She muttered.

Ginny rolled over and pulled up the blankets.

"You're in an awful mood, tonight. Are we approaching that time of the month?"

"No."

Ginny rolled back over.

"Actually, Luke, you might be enough of a rotter to help me. There's this other bloke I've been going round with. Nothing serious, just trying to take your advice and all. Well he's been getting all soppy on me and, as we're, erm, involved in some other projects and I do have quite a bit of respect for him, as a wizard, I can't just tell him to fuck off out of it. What should I do?" Ginny asked.

"Lie. Do you have a problem with lying?" Lord Malfoy replied.

"Not if it's necessary."

"Good. What you ought to do is think about something that has happened to you that his awful and horrendous, but doesn't especially bother you anymore. Then, go and tell whoever it is that 

you can't be with them any longer because you're too troubled by this awful thing. Or, if that's too unpleasant for you, just make something up. Those sentimental types will believe just about anything. Whatever you do, don't tell him the truth, you'll never get rid of him." Malfoy suggested.

Ginny thought it over.

That seemed like an excellent idea.

"I'm glad I haven't killed you, yet, Luke."

"So am I."

* * *

"Goddamnit, Ginny, you promised me you weren't going to see that Slytherin bastard, again!"

Remus and his werewolf temper.

Ginny rolled her eyes.

"Come off it, Remus. I never promised you nothin' of the kind. Come to think of it, I never promised you nothin' The only thing I ever promised any bloke was I promised Luke I'd kill him, someday. So don't get all squidgy on me."

"You think I'm turning into a lovesick fool! That's not it. You don't understand what kind of man he is! He'll seduce you into killing him just so he can die knowing he's corrupted you, completely!"

The bored but yet sardonic look on Ginny's face let Lupin know that his words were falling on deaf ears.

"I'm wasting me breath. It's all just fucking to you, isn't it?" he snapped.

"Pretty much." Ginny agreed.

"So I might as well be Lucius bloody Malfoy! Or the third lad from the right wearing a Gryffindor scarf and a "Killer Queen" badge with a bulge in his trousers. It's all the same to you!" Lupin elaborated.

"No. Not really. But it might as well be. Because things are just not quite right. I mean, they're alright. Nothing wrong with the lads wearing the Killer Queen badges. Or their dads wearing the Killer Queen badges. And Malfoy's not as bad as you might think he is. An' I've got a lot of respect for you, Remus. I expect I ought not to 'ave started in fencing with your pork sword, but sing as you go, I've done it now, haven't I? Something just isn't quite right, though. I can't put me finger on it. Well, I'd rather somebody else put their finger on it. And if I wanted it to be some Quidditch groupie, I'd be off with him, wouldn't I? You don't understand, Remus. I'm not the sentimental type."

Ginny realised her reply hadn't made much sense, but she thought she'd gotten her point across.

"Sentiment has nothing to do with it! I'm just suggesting that this is most likely the worst possible time in your life to equate sexual satisfactipn with violent death, that's all. I should have stuck to being your professor and your tutor. At least you know I'm not the right man for you. Or Malfoy. I shouldn't be doing this. I'm in love with another woman. A grown woman. As a matter of fact, I'm going to stop doing this. Right now. Your lesson is over, Miss Weasley, time for you to go back to Hogwarts."

Ginny admired Remus for trying to be a decent sort of chap, but she had walked all the way from the school in a cold October rain, and she could have waited for a nicer day for an animagic lesson.

"Wot, in the rain? Can't you grow a conscience on a sunny day, Remus?" Ginny squawked.

Lupin handed her an umbrella.

"I'll 'ave you next time. I'll come 'ere wif no knickers on, drop me wand and show yer a V for Victory." Ginny threatened.

"Perhaps. But I don't want you to miss curfew."

After Ginny left, Lupin took a long, cold shower.

With his clothes on.

Even his shoes.

* * *

"…and he frows me right out the bleedin' door! Not even a kiss goodbye or a smack on the arse! Fucking sanctimony, that's wot. I should stick with Slytherins. They don't bullshit themselves wif a lot of that soppy bullshit." Ginny explained to Hermione.

"No, they certainly don't." Hermione agreed.

Ginny just wasn't herself, lately.

She had lost some of that cheerful outlaw _joie de vivre_ that used to characterise her salacious tales of sex and ultraviolence. Now, a melancholy tone that was a far cry from the _macha_ bravado of the recent past crept into her reminiscences.

That was what came of fucking about with the wrong men, men who filled your head with bullshit that you'd have to be a lot stupider than you could ever imagine yourself being to believe in it.

Hermione handed her the bag of crisps, and Ginny reached for a handful.

"I should have left well enough alone with Luke. Not that he's any prize to take home to mother. He's a cold-blooded, two-tone son of a bitch and a complete psycho, but he's good for it and at least you can talk to the man. He's not the soppy type, always going all fucking gooshy on you like a 4th year in love with Snape, or getting on some fucking high horse. No offence. But Remus, Merlin's balls, if I knew he was going to go all, I dunno, proper and moral on me, I would have taken me business elsewhere. It's too complicated for me. I can always bump Luke off, but, well, yunno?" she finished.

She noticed she had gotten chip grease on her Muggle Studies homework, and quickly scourgified the paper.

"Why don't you spend more time with a bloke you really get on well with?" Hermione suggested.

"But that's just it. Other than complete fucking strangers that I never have to speak to, other than to say, harder, a little bit to the left, and what the fuck's wrong with you, that's me arse'ole, I'll turn your bollocks into a pair of earmuffs, Harry's the only bloke I really get along well with." Ginny replied.

"Well, there you go, then."

"Wot d'you mean, there I go, then?"

"You can quit tempting Professor Lupin into the occasion of sin, go to Malfoy Manor on Thursdays, have the odd one-off with your Quidditch Pitch Johnnies, and go round with Harry the rest of the time." Hermione clarified.

She could tell by the look on Ginny's face she had never really thought of it.

"That's fuckin' ridiculous!" Ginny protested, loudly

"It was just a suggestion." Hermione said, offhandedly.

They went back to work on their Arithmancy project, not saying much or paying much heed to the hours that ticked by.

Not until the long shadow of a dark creature crawled across the library table where they toiled.

"Do the two of you have any idea what time it is?"

It never ceased to amaze Ginny that Professor Snape could be as intimidating in an ancient rock t-shirt and an undead pair of black Levi's as he could in his bat-like teaching robes.

To-day's was a Deep Purple shirt which was probably only a bit younger than she and Hermione were.

Ginny looked at the tattoo of the snake on his arm and tried to practice what Remus showed her about seeing through glamours.

His Dark Mark was mottled and indistinct and the skin around it was all scarred in a pointed shape. Like he had tried to burn it off with a red hot poker.

He was a real serious motherfucker, Snape was.

"No, Professor." Ginny replied, hoping he hadn't noticed what she was doing.

"Really? I take it the recent twelve skull-rattling bongs from that ancient relic of a grandfather clock just a few feet away hasn't tipped you off? I should take ten points from Gryffindor, five for each of you, but since you're obviously studying, something most of the nimrods and yobboes in this place never do, I'll be merciful. This time. Get yourself to Gryffindor Tower, Miss Weasley. Now." Snape ordered.

Ginny and Hermione hastily began packing up their things, and as Ginny left, she didn't make any comment about Snape only ordering her off to Gryffindor Tower.

"You're such a rude bastard, Snape." Hermione told him, once Ginny was gone.

"The rules are for everyone, Granger. You'll be going off to your bed soon enough. Let me see that quill."

Snape produced a scrap of parchment from his pocket and carefully wrote Hermione a hall pass explaining she was in the library working on an assignment in her capacity as his student assistant.

"Put that in your pocket." He told her.

He did not have to tell her to get up on the table.

Snape looked over his shoulder and Hermione looked over both of hers.

"Is the coast clear, Granger?" the spymaster asked his protégé.

"Not a soul around, Snape." She replied.

Hastily, Snape undid his flies and Hermione gathered him close with open arms.

And open legs.

As for there not being a soul around, Peeves was around, and he gathered up a stack of crumbly old parchments, just waiting for the right time to swoop down and drop them on the oblivious couple, but the Bloody Baron foiled his plans.

"You never let me have any fun!" Peeves complained, as the Baron dragged him away.

"Pervert." The Baron accused.

* * *

Ginny still thought of Seeker as Harry's rightful position, but once she was out on the Quidditch pitch, she honestly didn't think of much.

Ginny lived for Quidditch matches. Cutting through the air laden with shouts and cheers on her trusty Nimbus 2000, her heart alive with adrenaline thundering in her chest, weaving and dodging the futile attempts of the enemy to stop or slow her, the sounds of Bludgers thudding into muscle and splintering bones, the smells of blood, sweat, fear and victory, it was just as good as battle, except nobody got killed.

And then she saw the Snitch.

Several fluttering black and green blurs attempted to interrupt her drive towards the little golden ball; they were a minor annoyance to be flown around or simply through.

She lowered her head and thrust her shoulder forward, smashing through the black and green blurs in a chorus of grunts and curses.

One would not be chased away, she knew it would soon fly alongside her as she tore through the air, beginning to flatten her body over the broomstick, reaching for the little golden ball.

She could smell him before she saw him, there was a certain similarity in the smell of the son and the father, and she could hear his laboured gasps for breath as he closed in.

Her hand closed around the snitch an instant before Draco Malfoy's hand closed around thin air.

Ginny's could make out the sound of Harry's cheers amid everyone else's and she smiled a bloody grin.

"Which one of us has it, Draco?" Ginny asked, trying to focus her eyes.

Draco gave the witch an odd look. Still, she had taken a Bludger to the face and one to the ribs, and she was flying with one hand on her broomstick and the other clutched against her side, with blood trickling out of her nose and mouth.

"You've got it." He said.

For a moment, he almost admired her.

He was going to say something but then her idiot brother showed up, and Draco made an appropriately rude comment and flew back to face his teammates.

"Gin, you don't look so good."

"I don't feel so good. Lemme put me arms around yer neck and give me a tow; I'm gonna fall off me broomstick." she confessed.

Ron was about to say something to her about now playing so hard, but then he decided to skip it.

* * *

Ginny had to go to the infirmary before she hit the showers, where Madame Pomfrey fixed up her face and did what she could with her ribs; it was on the same side she'd been hurt before in Knockturn Alley.

She was still sore, and tired, and worse, benched from Quidditch practise all week.

Ginny stood under the shower for about a half-hour and she was falling asleep when someone snapped her bare arse hard with a wet towel.

"Harry, you fuck, get your arse out of the Women's Locker Room!"

"Wake up, then! We've got some serious fucking partying to do!" Harry replied.

Ginny turned off the water.

"Get me a towel, will you?"

She didn't ask Harry to turn around or avert his eyes as she got out of the showers and dried off, so he didn't.

They were team-mates, after all, and best mates, and it wasn't as if he'd never seen her naked or she'd never seen him naked. It never made her feel weird, getting close to Harry, or being naked with him. They went swimming together, they often slept in the same bed or in the same spot, passed out from exertion, or in Harry's case, just drunk.

"What's this? Is everyone's favourite tomboy developing some tits and arse?" Harry joked.

"I'm 16. I'm a woman, now, what do you expect?" Ginny replied.

She started the long process of combing her hair, which fell to her knees, at least.

"Blimey, we'll never get out of here." Harry said.

He decided to help her.

Harry wasn't too sure when he stopped thinking of Ginny as a little sister, or as his tomboy best mate, it had been a gradual sort of thing as he stood behind her, combing out her hair, he realised that if he was going to get this turned on around Ginny he was going to have to stop horsing around with her, which was something he didn't want to do.

Unless she didn't mind him horsing around with her in a completely different way, which was something he did want to do.

A lot, actually.

"Harry! Don't stand so close to me!"

"How else am I going to comb your hair?"

Ginny turned around.

"Harry, you're my best friend in the world, and as my best friend in the world, I love you, dearly. This isn't something I normally do with people I give a shit about." She explained.

"Me neither. I think that's the way it's supposed to be, though." Harry volunteered.

"I've never been all that good about supposed to be. You give me the comb, I'll finish up in here, and then we can go celebrate with our friends. We'll sort the rest out, later." Ginny decided.

"Good idea." Harry agreed.

* * *

The next night, Ginny sat in front of two pieces of parchment, with Pigwidgeon the owl hooting happily and zooming around her head.

They were both letters to her mother, but she was only going to send one of them.

All she usually talked about was school. But what else could she tell her mother about her life? Molly knew about the fights and duels at Hogwarts that Ginny occasionally got detention for, and her war-related duties, but Ginny could hardly tell her about putting the boot in with junkies, drunks, degenerates and Death Eaters in dive pubs in Knockturn Alley watching Harry's back.

She always wanted to know if Ginny had a boyfriend. That's why Ginny had invented the G-rated, Madmae Puddifoot's tea shop romance with Harry.

What was she supposed to tell her? Ginny wasn't about to tell her mother that she had stopped counting the numbers of her boyfriends, and that one star-struck face had melded into the next, by now. And she couldn't tell anybody about her bizarre obsession with and vendetta against Luke Malfoy any more than she could even explain to herself why she was hotfooting it over to Malfoy Manor to burn up the sheets with him every Thursday instead of planting him six feet under the cold, cold ground.

Not to mention the occasional dalliance with Remus, who seem to have convinced himself he was laying cock to her for the greater good of her spiritual health and welfare, rather than because they were both a couple of randy shape-shifters with the smell of one another stuck in their noses..

Ginny looked over the first letter.

_Dear Mum,_

_ Things are beginning to look far less dire than they did at the beginning of the year. For one thing we won our last two Quidditch matches. I still think everybody was over-reacting, chucking Harry off the team for a little roughhousing with Draco. I like playing Seeker, but I miss playing with Harry. I'm completely recovered from that Bludger I took to the back of the head, but the one I took to the ribs was in a spot where I'd just been hurt, so they won't let me play this coming week. Bastards._

_ Harry was quite a mean drink on Hell's Horntail and St. George's Dragon, but who wouldn't be? On beer and stout he's mellow and amiable. I sort of miss the excitement of not knowing what would happen next, and the generally sleazy atmosphere at the Horntail's Nest in Knockturn Alley, but I don't miss the broken bones and the terrible pain you get from fighting five or six full grown wizards. Besides, the Hog's Head is plenty sleazy enough for me!_

_ Also, I found out that Harry wasn't just buying his coke and the occasional cap of smack from his contacts in the Alley; Draco peddles it here at school. I threatened to knock him around if he sells anything but weed to Harry, so, for now, I've got him off hard drugs and hard liquour. He seems to be doing a lot better and we still have a lot of fun together. _

_ Harry's my best friend in the world. He's the only person I know who really understands me. If either he or I were the type to do the whole relationship trip, I'd be his old lady in a minute. Besides, he's dead sexy. I wouldn't mind shagging him right out of his socks; I'd put him through the wall. _

_ Insofar as that goes, I've gone from shagging five or six blokes I don't know in a week to just two that I do. And the occasional sampling of the local talent. I still haven't got around to killing Luke Malfoy, and Remus says I shouldn't. Remus Lupin, my ex-professor and eventual sponsor in the Knights of Albion, I mean. He says this is the worst possible time in my life for me to connect sexual pleasure with violent death. He's probably right. I've been sleeping with him, as well, but it's alright, I seduced him, not the other way round._

_ I feel kind of like Goldilocks in the Three Bears' house. But Remus is too soft, and Luke is too hard, and neither one of them is just right. I like how Luke doesn't bother himself or me with lots of romantic slosh, but he's too standoffish. Remus and I have more fun together, but he's getting on my nerves, sometimes, going on and on about how he's in love with Tonks, and he shouldn't be having an affair with me. He's bullshitting himself into thinking he's been wielding the old pork sword on me person to better my spiritual welfare. He's got to be barking mad, pardon the pun. _

_ Poor soul, he tries so hard to be noble and tell me too push off. I really ought to let him alone, he's stupid in love with Tonks and I should get the fuck out of the way of whatever dance they're doing. I don't want to be the spare prick at the wedding, after all._

_ Generally, though, things are going well and I'm looking forward to the ball on Halloween. Harry and I are going to dress up as something together, but we don't know what, yet._

_ Don't worry about me, whatever happens, I can handle it._

_ Love_

_ Ginny._

That was the letter Ginny wanted to send. She knew it would shock the shit out of her mother, but she really wanted some advice on what the fuck she should do with her life.

Then, there was the other letter.

_Dear Mum,_

_Things are beginning to look far less dire than they did at the beginning of the year. For one thing we won our last two Quidditch matches. I still think everybody was over-reacting, chucking Harry off the team for a little roughhousing with Draco. I like playing Seeker, but I miss playing with Harry. I'm completely recovered from that Bludger I took to the back of the head, but the one I took to the ribs was in a spot where I'd just been hurt, so they won't let me play this week. Rotters._

_ Harry and I are getting on well, as usual. He's me best friend in the world. He's the only person I know who really understands me. _

_ I'm looking forward to the ball on Halloween. Harry and I are going to dress up as something together, but we don't know what, yet. Love,_

_ Ginny._

Which wouldn't fool Molly for a second.

Ginny composed a third letter, and sent it off with Pig, for good or ill.

_Dear Mum,_

_Things are beginning to look far less dire than they did at the beginning of the year. For one thing we won our last two Quidditch matches. I still think everybody was over-reacting, chucking Harry off the team for a little roughhousing with Draco. I like playing Seeker, but I miss playing with Harry. I'm completely recovered from that Bludger I took to the back of the head, but the one I took to the ribs was in a spot where I'd just been hurt, so they won't let me play this week. Bastards._

_ I suppose you've heard some of the rumours floating around about me; I hope Dad hasn't, as most of them are true. Some might say I'm a right baggage, and no better off than I ought to have been, and it's a fair cop, but I feel like me whole life is turning to shit and I'm not sure what to do to fix it. It's like Goldilocks, this one's too hard and this one's too soft and nobody is quite right._

_ I've been blagging you about Harry, which you probably already know, but what is true is that he's me best friend in the whole world and the only person I know who really understands me. Perhaps I ought to throw my lot in with him. The likes of us were meant for one another, I suppose. Who else would have us?_

_ Anyway, Harry and I don't know what we want to be for Halloween this year, so if you have any suggestions about that, or any advice to give me, or if you just want to send me a Howler, I'll be waiting for you to reply._

_ Love_

_ Ginny_

_PS None of this bollocks had affected me studies, grades, animagus training or duties as a soldier in any way, and it's not bloody likely to, either._

After Ginny finished owling her mother, she wished she hadn't, but done was done and so she returned to the Gryffindor common room, looking for Hermione.

Hermione wasn't there, however, and she wasn't in the library, either.

Which meant she was probably in the dungeons with Professor Snape. They were either hard at work, or hard at it, or maybe watching that telly thing.

Muggle-borns and their telly. Snape worked Harry like a dog during his day detention, and his morning Occlumency training sessions, but he hardly complained about it to Ginny, because he got to watch telly during his night detentions.

Ginny liked the Muggle classic rock music Harry had introduced her to, and although she listened by Wizarding methods, she rather liked Harry's records and CD's. But the whole television thing left her cold. She didn't see what all the fuss was about, but, then again, she supposed you had to grow up with the thing to love it so.

Still, it would be nice to have someplace to go and someone to go to in it. Ginny had no desire to hang around Malfoy Manor even had she been invited, and Remus was so unpredictable.

It was very late, almost the end of Harry's night detention, and she decided to wait up for him.

Harry and Hermione both flooed into the empty Common Room around ten past two.

Hermione made a point of yawning and hurrying off to bed, leaving Harry and Ginny alone together.

Harry was surprised Ginny was there.

She had been spending a lot of time in a certain cottage with a certain werewolf, who after a lifetime of self-discipline, was allowing himself a bit of a holiday.

He wasn't supposed to know about all that, but he did.

Harry had come by Professor Lupin's retreat one evening, just to talk about some things, and as he passed the open window he saw something going on in the bedroom that he shouldn't have seen.

He quietly closed the shutters and hurried away, but it was difficult for him to get the sound he'd heard Ginny making out of his mind. That low, melodious, purring sound. It made the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck, not to mention the old Firebolt, stand on end.

Which only served to confirm a feeling that had been travelling around in his guts like a virus for quite some time.

After all, Ginny told her parents that they were dating; they were together so much that a lot of people assumed they were.

So, why shouldn't they be?

He had done some thinking about it, and not just since the awkward moment in the locker room; it had all been on his mind for awhile.

Mostly while he was doing for Snape and Hermione in Snape's lab. There was nothing conventional or ordinary or socially acceptable going on with them, and they seemed content enough. If Snape, that wicked old screw of a randy Scouser bastard and Hermione, the human computer, the everlasting know-it-all could make a go of whatever, why not him and Ginny.

Or maybe it was just because they were both from Liverpool, and Northerners do stick together.

As for him and Ginny, it wasn't as if Harry would expect Ginny to make him the only rooster in the henhouse. He knew he was incapable of monogamy, himself. What he wanted was to be the Cock of the Walk. Ginny's Number One Bloke, and she could be his Number One Bird.

What got Harry was thinking up some sort of suave and slick way to present it to her.

He couldn't think of one, though, and so decided to fall back on the truth.

"So, how was night detention?"

"Beastly. When I got there, that slave-driving son of a bitch, Snape had Hermione working on some project. He was working on it, too, and there was no telly for anyone. He had me cleaning out cauldrons and scourgifying flasks and slaving just as hard as Hermione. They both seemed like it was terribly fucking urgent, but nobody told me why. At any rate, I'm so wound up I couldn't sleep if I tried. Are you tired?" Harry asked.

"No. I can't sleep, tonight. I just got done owling the semi-censored version of life at Hogwarts to me Mum. I should be getting a Howler in the morning. What do you have in mind, Harry?"

"How about a little ride into the woods? We'll fly right the hell out of this fucking war and this lousy school. At least for a little while."

Ginny smiled at Harry.

"Sounds like fun. I'll go get me broomstick." Ginny replied.


	5. Just Right

**Chapter Five: Just Right**

She followed Harry through a lovely clear night to a clearing in the middle of the woods, to the quiet side of a small pond. He led her to a spot under a tree, a nice soft, spot that was shady in the sunlight, cool and quiet in the dark.

Ginny got the feeling Harry had something to say to her, so she just waited for him to say it.

"This is me place. And I mean me own place. There's a spell on these trees; they won't let anyone in but me. I never brought your brother or Hermione here, or Cho. They wouldn't understand why I need to come to a place like this. Whole people, people walking around with Mums and Dads and grandparents and uncles and brothers and sisters and rotten piss-ant cousins, they don't know what it's like."

Harry took a flask out of the pocket of his jacket, had a drink and exhaled pungent smoke through his nostrils.

Idly, Ginny wondered where he had gotten the Horntail from.

Then, he lit one of his English Ovals.

"It's never enough. Never enough booze, never enough dope, never enough bints, or enough fights. That fucker Voldemort put a black hole right through the middle of me. He took me Mum and me Dad and even me godfather, and left me to twist in the wind in a houseful of strangers supposed to be me family who only quit treating me like an utter piece of shit because they became afraid of me. The only one of 'em worth a shit is me grandfather, and he's been in prison for racketeering and murder since 1975. Goddamn Tom fucking Riddle. He put his mark on me, so I have to be the one to save the world from him. A world full of punters who don't give a fuck if I die, as long as I save their cowardly, lily-white arses before I do it. I hate him. And I hate them. It's like the fires of hell burning inside me. I can't face it sober. I'd burn up alive. And you know exactly what I'm talking about. You're the only person who does."

"Fucking right I do! Me Mum and Dad think it's some kind of phase I'm going through. Phase my arse. It's like in History class, when Frodo says that when he closes his eyes, all he can see is the ring of fire that is Sauron's eye, and all he can smell is sulphur. I feel like I'm losing me mind, Harry. I've done something terrible. I think. Maybe two things that are terrible."

"Tell me." Harry encouraged her.

Ginny decided to bite the bullet.

"You know about my Lucius Malfoy project?"

"If you mean insane obsessive vendetta when you say "project", then, sure." Harry replied.

"It's taken a rather strange turn. Since the beginning of the school year, I've been going to Malfoy Manor, every Thursday night. And not to play cards. I suppose I'll get around to killing Luke, eventually, but right now I don't feel like it. He's knows I'm going to do it, too, he knows all about my, ah, insane obsessive vendetta, and it don't bother him. As long as I use the Killing Curse so his family can have an open casket wedding." Ginny admitted

Harry had a strange reaction.

"That poor bastard. Past all hope. You'd be doing him a favour, killing him. God, I hope I never get that bad."

He took another drink.

"Any more confessions?" he asked.

"I seduced Remus Lupin. I sort of did it for a lark, but I'm beginning to feel terrible about it. He's so…emotional. You know how werewolves are. No, I expect you don't. Well, they're very fucking emotional. And he's in love with another woman. He wants to end it, and I think we should, but he doesn't want to leave me alone in the world with Luke Malfoy. Which doesn't suit me, neither. He's so standoffish."

"Poor Ginny. Porridge too hot? Porridge too cold? Where, oh where, is just right?"

"That's what I want to know. Is that all you have to say, Harry?" Ginny asked.

"Sure. Who'm I to judge you? I've done some things I wouldn't tell the Devil about. Sex can be a funny thing. You find yourself fucking people under the oddest circumstances. At least I do." Harry replied.

"Now you sound like Luke. You both drink the same cheap firewhiskey, and smoke the same fags."

"Well it makes sense, don't it?. He's just Voldemort's patsy. Just like me. I'm destined to sacrifice me life killing the wicked old bastard and Malfoy is destined to sacrifice his life saving him. Maybe neither of us is satisfied with destiny, anymore. Either way, Ginny, I'm not going to live to see thirty. Or even twenty-one. No time to fuck about. Me point is, you and me, we're a lot alike. And you've always got me back, anyway. Let's face it. Remus is right. You shouldn't be alone with Malfoy. And you're right, you should get the hell out of the way of Professor Lupin and Tonks' crazy yes-I-will, no-I-can't love affair. I think I have a solution for you. The only thing either of us have got to keep us from ending up like that sad bastard Malfoy is each other. You're looking at Mr. Just Right."

"Harry, I'm not girlfriend material."

"Good. I'm not boyfriend material. Not for any other witch but you. I already know you'll fuck around on me. And you know I'll fuck around on you? So what? Who cares? That kind of middle class bullshit isn't important to me. And it isn't important to you, either. I'll be your Number One Bloke, and you can be my Number One Bird. I need you, Ginny. And you need me. For one thing, all this tension is getting in the way of us being best mates, and we can't have that, can we? For another, you need a bloke who actually understands you and gives a shit about you, but who isn't going to smother you with slosh or try to make you follow some stupid fucking rules of how to be a girl or any of that other shit that don't matter. And I need a woman who gives a damn if I live or die. God knows every groupie who jumps on me cock because it's a foot long and I'm Harry Potter, doesn't." Harry finished

"Merlin's balls, Harry, is it really a foot long?" Ginny asked.

She realised that might not have been the best thing to say to anybody else, but Harry just winked and smiled broadly, because he knew that meant she was saying yes.

He grinned a lecher's leer.

"Sure it is. And let me tell you what, I know a little something about birds, I've had enough of 'em. I'm not just fucking about, I been carefully taught what it is makes a woman happy. And I know a bird built like you, she's got a spot where there's an itch that no bloke can really seem to reach. Even Lord Superfuck Malfoy. I know just where it is, and I can reach it. Aren't you tired of fucking about with boys who don't give a shit about you and don't know what they're doing? I may only be 16, Ginny, but I'm a man. I want to be your man. I'm a fucking wreck, and I don't know I'll live to see 21, and all I have to give you is 12 inches and all the heart and soul I got left to me. Please, let me."

It wasn't a romantic speech, as romantic speeches go, but Ginny was deeply moved by it.

"I wish you would, Harry." She replied.

Harry kissed her.

Maybe Harry was Mr. Just Right. Maybe he wasn't just talking about something physical; maybe he meant that it was the emotional satisfaction they were both missing; the simple pleasure of fucking someone you cared about who cared about you.

"Do you want to go home, now?" Harry teased her.

"Not half!"

Ginny pointed at him.

"_Divesto_!"

"Wandless magic, eh? Not bad." Harry said.

"Remus taught me a few simple spells." Ginny explained.

He certainly looked like a man. He was rawboned and wiry, and had hair on his arms and his long, flat, wiry thighs and even a little on his chest. He kissed her with passion and authority; he didn't knock her head on an errant rock when he lowered her onto the ground; and he had his Invisibility Cloak spread out beneath them.

He didn't use a spell, he undressed her with his own two hands.

"God damn, Ginny, your hair's so fucking long. You've always looked like an Elf, when you're naked. You could be an Elf, and this could be a Faery ring, and you're going to take me away from here. Forever." Harry told her.

He kissed her ears and the hollow of her neck, as he muttered his endearment, rolling her nipple between his fingertips, moaning into her white throat.

It was an odd thing to say, odd and tender.

No one ever said odd and tender things to Ginny while they were fucking her. They grunted and said dirty things, or muttered corny shit that sounded like it came from the love stories her Mum liked to watch, but never anything like that.

Harry wasn't just bragging about knowing what he was doing. He could read every move she made; she didn't have to tell him to touch her here or kiss her there and she didn't have to push his head down between her legs or hold it there.

And when he took a breath he kept muttering odd, tender things; he ran his hungry mouth all over her whole body, kissing her and licking her and sucking her until she was crying and misty-eyed with pleasure.

"I can't breathe. I don't know where I am, anymore." She panted.

He was scratching that itch she had, and scratching it good.

"How d'you want me, Ginny luv? Tell me." Harry asked her.

She opened up her eyes.

You saw things like that in the movies, but you never expected to see such a thing in real life.

Luke was amazingly well hung, and Remus more so, but Harry was ridiculously well-hung. It really was a foot long, a real monster, almost as big around as a beer can with an immense purple head that winked its one eye at her, conspiratorially, as it peered from under its hood.

"Let me get on it. You been doing everything to me, Harry, now let me do something to you."

He lay down on his back and Ginny leaned over to kiss him on the lips.

She wasn't sure if she could do it, but she meant to do it.

Harry moaned when her lips closed over his cock, and she started working her way down its length, patiently, deliberately, like the snake swallowing it's prey, whole.

"Oh shit! Merlin's balls, that feels good! Ohhhh, Ginny…" Harry moaned, ecstatically.

No witch had ever been able to deep throat him before, but Ginny managed it, talking him all the way in until his balls, which were also huge, bounced against her chin.

She wanted to do something to make him feel good; Ginny got the feeling that wasn't very important to his usual clientele.

Harry was weeping with pleasure as Ginny straddled him, carefully aiming his monstrous cock with her hand.

"We'll see about that spot." She panted.

"It's there." Harry assured her.

He put his hands on her arse, and they slid her slowly, exquisitely down the length of his cock.

It hit the spot, and Ginny's ears started ringing like a fire alarm.

She roared, tossed her mane about and started riding him in earnest.

Harry never had a witch like her, never ever. She was like a volcano erupting from the pit of Hell, and came two or three times like an express train crashing into his body before she collapsed on top of him in a near faint.

Harry gently rolled her over on her back, and she seemed exhausted, but in a few strokes she was crazy with desire again, pushing back against him.

Harry didn't have to hold back with Ginny, he could pour his naked, raw lust over her like lava and she'd meet his most molten heat. She took it all and shouted to him for more, cheering him on and spewing obscenities. He wanted to make it last longer, but as Ginny came off one last time she hit Harry with the full fury of her own naked, raw lust, raging and muscular.

He came quite helplessly, moaning and grunting and even laughing as Ginny's roars subsided into those lovely purring sounds she made.

They lolled onto the ground, breathless and spent.

When he had strength to, Harry rolled over and pulled Ginny into his arms.

"Can you do _acccio_, without a wand, Ginny, luv? I need me fags and I can't make a fist." he asked.

Ginny got him his cigarettes and Harry used the lighter he kept in the pack to light up.

She watched him lazily blow smoke rings into the air.

"Oi, Harry?"

"Hmmm?"

"Just right."

Harry laughed.

After he had his smoke, he fell asleep.

Ginny wrapped the Invisibility Cloak around them both, and she fell asleep, too.

* * *

The birds outside her window seemed to be tweeting awfully loudly, until Ginny realised she was still outside with the birds.

It was morning, and she and Harry were still lying naked under the tree with their clothes strewn all over the bank.

She was still in his arms, and it was a lovely morning, but they had class in less than an hour.

"WAKE UP, HARRY!" Ginny yelled.

Harry sat up, and began feeling around for his glasses.

He put them on.

"Where the fuck are we?"

"In your happy place. Where's me shoes? Where's me pants? Those are your pants. Get dressed, we have to go!"

* * *

Ginny was still thinking about the previous night as she was supposed to be eating her lunch.

She looked over at Hermione, who had a similar dreamy leer on her face.

Spymaster Snape must be some kind of man, wicked nasty old tosser that he was.

Harry was busy wolfing his lunch, and Ron was watching him with a look of grim fascination.

"Don't look, Ron, it'll put you off." Ginny told him.

Ron pushed his plate away.

"Too late." He said.

"D'you want this, mate?" Harry asked.

"Go ahead. Chow down. You need your strength for killing Death Eaters and rumping groupies." Ron replied.

"Cheers. Brilliant. Thanks." Harry said and began devouring Ron's food.

Malfoy made his regularly scheduled stop at their table.

If he was a double agent, he was damn good at it.

"You owe me twenty galleons, you disgusting pig." He told Harry.

"Sue me, fucko." Harry told his plate.

"I'll give you twenty galleons worth of GBH, Malfoy! Harry showed me a bag of oregano that wasn't worth twenty pence! What will your father think when he finds out you've been dealing on the side, shorting your usual customers, and lining your own pockets, fucking him and Tom Riddle both?" Ginny insisted.

"Why would my father listen to you?" Draco snorted.

"He has his reasons." Ginny said, meaningfully.

Draco opened his mouth and closed it again, like a fish.

"Harry and I will be at the Hog's Head tonight at ten. If you're not there with the real goods, come Thursday next I'll be singing to your old man like a fucking canary. Get me?" Ginny snarled.

"Will you have my twenty galleons?" Draco asked.

"I want to see the stuff, first." Ginny insisted.

"Deal." Draco agreed.

He took one last swipe at Harry.

"I see you have a new personal secretary, Potter. I do hope you're getting all the services Miss Weasley has to offer."

Ron got up from his chair and got his wand out, but Harry was there ahead of him, and he was holding Draco high in the air.

By the throat.

With one hand.

"Don't you talk like that about my woman, you nasty little Slytherin fuck! I'll rip your heart out with me bare hands and make you watch it stop beating as you die!" Harry insisted.

"Put him down! Snape will see you!" Hermione encouraged Harry.

Harry put Draco down.

"Congrats, Potter. And to you too, Weasley. Harry Potter and the Killer Queen. A real match made in Hell." He sniped, before making a fast getaway.

"Did I say you could date my sister?" Ron asked.

"Mum thinks Harry and I are dating." Ginny reminded him.

"Mum has no idea what the two of you are really like. Harry, I don't want you treating Ginny the way you treat your Boy Who Lived groupies, all knickers down and what was your name, again. And Ginny, I don't want you abusing poor Harry the way you do with the likes of the lot you entertain, expecting them all to be Johnny Holmes and then slagging them all over the Wizarding World if they're not. I don't want the two of you doing unto each other as other people have done unto you, yunno?" Ron replied.

"Ron, I swear, I'd never do anything to hurt Ginny. She's different. I…well...we understand each other." Harry said.

"That's right, Ron. You know I'm good to Harry. And he'll be good to me." Ginny assured her brother.

"If you put my sister in the club, or if you give her some disease, I'll cripple you." Ron told him.

"I'll help." Hermione agreed.

"I won't lay a finger on her." Harry said.

Harry reached for Ginny's hand under the table and she could feel his crossed fingers.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, right." She said.

"It's not your finger I'm worried about." Ron muttered.

Ginny looked over at the Slytherin's table, and all of them looked away.

She squeezed Harry's hand.

"So, Hermione, how are things with Old Snape? I hope he's not being too hard on you during all of those strenuous after-school activities." Ginny teased.

"Ewwww. That's so foul!" Ron exclaimed.

"Oh, it's not too much for me." Hermione replied, lightly.

She winked at Ginny and Ginny winked back.

* * *

Ginny was sweating out the inevitable reply from home. It came a week later, while she was sitting in the Common Room, by the window. Pig flew in, hooting madly, with a reply from home, and a package.

It wasn't a howler, and that was a good sign, but Ginny was still nervous about what her mother might have said.

She took the letter into her dorm room, closed herself up in bed, and read it.

_Dear Ginny,_

_It was so nice to finally get a letter from you that wasn't all rosy lies and half-truths. You haven't been fooling me. I'm your mother, and I at least had my suspicions about what you've been up to. I also had a rather sobering visit from Professor Snape not too long ago, so I know all about you and Harry and Knockturn Alley. _

_I wanted to pull you out of school, and ground you until you were 30. I was prepared to chain you to your bed with mithril, if I had to, but Professor Snape convinced me otherwise. I understand that you were just trying to take care of Harry, but there are better ways for you to do that._

_You can start by taking care of yourself._

_Those boys are using you. I know you think I'm your old fuddy-duddy traditional Mum having the horrors about you sowing a few wild oats. But I'm not objecting to what you've done on moral grounds. For one thing, you could catch any number of terrible diseases that birth control doesn't affect. For another, despite your pretence to having no feelings, you can't tell me it isn't somehow dehumanising to have these boys pass through you and leave without so much as knowing their names. You must wonder why they never say hello to you when they see you; why they never seem to acknowledge that you exist or that anything happened between you. I'm sure it's a terribly lonely feeling, isolating and sad._

_And Harry is going through the same thing. You both think you're getting over, but all you're getting is abused. And he drinks, and you fight, and things get worse and you both wonder why life has no joy or meaning._

_Because you aren't an island, and you aren't made of stone. If you want to have two or three boyfriends, I suppose I will have to live with that. It would be an improvement; that would be two or three boys who know you and care for you in some way; people with whom you have some kind of trust and friendship. _

_I think you and Harry ought to become a couple, because he does understand you, and he is your best friend, and the two of you care very deeply for each other. As your mother I of course hope to see the two of you settle down someday, and I wouldn't mind Harry becoming an official member of the family._

_It's hard for me to understand why you've done some of these things, Ginervra, and as your mother it hurts me deeply to know that you are in so much pain, and that there's so little I can do to help you. I want you to be honest with me, and know that you can ask me for advice on anything, and come to me about anything, no matter what it is. Remember, I'm still your mother, and I love you. But please, be careful! I know you hate it when I talk about these kinds of things, but don't let Harry get you drinking and stay away from drugs, and I hope that you haven't done anything with any of these boys without using a contraceptive spell and condoms. Every time! NO EXCEPTIONS! Don't go making me a grandmother yet!_

_All that said, your father has no idea about any of this, & I will see to it that it stays that way. Tell Harry that I'm not angry with him, and that if he needs me as a stand-in for motherly advice, I'll be glad to help him._

_If you need me to make your costumes this year for the Halloween Ball, I will. I know Harry has the money to buy costumes, but sometimes the home-made ones are nicer. _

_I packed you up a box of home-made treats for you and your brother, but there's enough to share with Harry and Hermione. Be careful, stay safe and try to have a little more respect and regard for yourself. Professor Snape thinks you're an excellent student, a good soldier, and a loyal friend. I agree. You're also a wonderful daughter and a good girl. Be proud of that, and don't worry about the rest. Everyone makes mistakes; the idea is to learn from them._

_ Love_

_ Mum_

Ginny had to read the letter twice to make sure it really said what it said.

She didn't notice that Harry had opened up the curtains and climbed into bed with her until she heard him opening the box.

"Molly's homemade biscuits! And cupcakes! Popcorn balls, pumpkin crèmes, chocolate marshmallow cats…" he kept exclaiming, digging through the seemingly-bottomless box.

Ginny folded up the letter and put it under the bed. She turned to Harry and found him stuffing his face with treats, one after the other.

"They're not all for you, for fuck's sake! Save some for me and Ron and Hermione, will you?" she bawled, grabbing the box from him.

She took out a few biscuits and a cupcake, closed up the box and put it under the bed.

"Can I have one more biscuit?" Harry asked.

"No! What do I do if you eat yourself into a coma and pass out?" Ginny replied.

"Can I have one more biscuit after you've had your injection, then?" Harry rejoined.

Ginny couldn't help but laugh.

"Yes." She managed to say.

One thing about her and Harry, they always had a real good time.


End file.
